UPDATED: Edgerton mirred in lawsuit

A document distributed at Thursday night’s Edgerton City Council meeting revealed the city is involved in pending litigation.

A memorandum of understanding drafted by the city detailed the terms under which City Administrator David Dillner may resign from his position and outlined the specifics of how the city plans to transition between Dillner and his replacement.

One section of the memorandum, however, read: “The city shall provide the reasonable cost of defending employee in the pending litigation known as I-35 Edgerton LLC, et. al. v. The City of Edgerton, Kansas, et. al. … and indemnify employee on this case and any others arising as a result of his employment with the city, as provided by Resolution of the City and by law.”

According to the state’s Business Center, Edgerton resident Connie Fraley is listed as the contact for I-35 Edgerton LLC. The group formed in May 2006 and has an Overland Park address listed.

The Gardner News has placed calls to Edgerton City Attorney Patrick Reavey and other city officials as to the nature of the lawsuit. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Comments

Court case involving city and Dillner is Jo. Co. Dist. Court #09CV10918. You may view original petition by going to the court house at no cost to you. Original petition is 83 pages long. You can also bring up the case thru Dist. Court Records but that file tells you nothing.

As I understand it, I-35 Edgerton LLC has challenged the benefit district that brought water and sewer service to the planned 558 home and 316 unit apartment complex known as Sunflower Ridge on property northwest of I-35 and Sunflower Road in southern Edgerton. The owner of property at the southeast corner of I-35 and Sunflower Road does not feel that they benefit substantially and that other property owners should have been included in the district to more evenly spread the development costs. They filed suit in Johnson County District Court against the City of Edgerton and 53 additional property owners in and around the Edgerton city limits.

Yes, Gardner has recently spent millions on the improvement of Moonlight Rd. To me this should have been a benefit district or a driveway tax imposed rather than having all of the taxpayers pay for these costs. Again, with this intermodal coming you are going to want some container fees and/or driveway taxes imposed or some other methods of taxation utilized or the average citizen’s tax burden is going to get even more heavy. Drovetta will always want the PEOPLE to take care of all of these costs while taking care of biz and developers – I never have felt any benefit from the trickle down economics that every thief and worthless politician loves to sell you and citizens continue to eat and drink the propaganda.

Look at the Walmart TIF. To me it is scandalous that the people have received no sales tax revenue from that Walmart since it opened and we do not receive around 98% of the property tax revenue on the property since it was built. And it is because we are paying, for the most part, development costs for Walmart that they didn’t want to pay. You are not seeing hundreds of thousands of tax revenue and probably a good $1 Million a year while Walmart dearly loves having you pick up the tab – they always want their TIF wherever they go. You sure wouldn’t have got that huge city tax mill levy increase this year in my opinion if your city leaders hadn’t made that sweet deal that put you on the hook for over $7 Million and who knows how long it will take to get that paid off. And you have had to pay interest on the money that had to be borrowed to pay for these costs – it is just like putting more salt into the wound for me. Citizens paying for these costs when Walmart is the biggest retailer in the whole world I believe and I feel they CAN afford to pay their own development costs – I certainly can’t afford to do so.

Susie Bray says she doesn’t like for me to say the people are being financially raped – well, to me they are.

What??? High property taxes. One Edgerton resident said he couldn’t wait for the rail road to come–his property taxes were going to be 60 per cent less!!!

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